Author: Marco Casagrande
Ruin Academy, Casagrande Laboratory, Bergen School of Architecture, and International Society of Bio-urbanism, Finland
REUSE ARCHITECTURE CONFERENCE, Zagreb 2021
Republic of Croatia
Ministry of Physical Planning, Construction and State Assets
Abstract
The crisis of urbanism is analyzed as a vital phenomenon that prepares
the Third Generation City— its connection with nature and its flesh.
The industrial city is, on the contrary,
fictitious. The example
of the settlement of Treasure Hill, near Taipei, is given. As an organic
ruin of the industrial city, Treasure Hill is a bio-urban site of resistance and an acupuncture point of Taipei, with its own design
methodology based on Local Knowledge. This ruin is the matter from which
parasite urbanism composts the modern city. Urban acupuncture, the Third Generation City, and the conceptual model
of Paracity speak to the community that rests in the hands of its own people.
Keywords: urban acupuncture; bio-urbanism; Third Generation City; ruins; parasite urbanism; Paracity; Local Knowledge
1. Treasure Hill
In 2003, the Taipei City Government decided to destroy the unofficial
settlement of Treasure Hill (Kang,
2006). By that time, the community consisted of some 200 households of, mainly
elderly Kuomintang veterans and
illegal migrant workers. The bulldozers had knocked down the first two layers of the houses of the terraced
settlement on the hillside. After that, the houses were standing too high for the bulldozers to reach, and
there were no drivable roads leading into the organically built settlement. Then the official city
destroyed the farms and community gardens of Treasure Hill down by the Xindian River
flood banks. Then they cut the circulation between the individual houses— small
bridges, steps, stairs, and pathways. After that, Treasure Hill was left to
rot, to die slowly, cut away from its life sources.
With the manpower and simple construction material, we start
reconstructing the connections between
the houses of the settlement, but most importantly, we also restart the farms. Rumors start spreading in Taipei: things
are cooking in Treasure Hill. More people
volunteer for the work, and after enough
urban rumors, suddenly
the media arrives.
After the media,
the politicians follow. The City Government officially agrees that this
is exactly why they had invited me from Finland
to work on the issue of Treasure Hill.
Working in Treasure Hill had pressed an acupuncture point of the industrial Taipei City. Our humble construction work was the needle that had penetrated through the thin layer of official control and touched the original ground of Taipei—collective topsoil where Local Knowledge is rooting. Treasure Hill is an urban compost, which was considered a smelly corner of the city, but after some turning is now providing the most fertile topsoil for future development.
2. Urban acupuncture
After this initial discovery in Treasure Hill, the research of Urban
Acupuncture continued at the Tamkang
University Department of Architecture, In 2009, the Finnish Aalto University’s Sustainable Global Technologies research
center with Professor Olli Varis (Casagrande, 2009) joined in to further
develop the multidisciplinary working methods
of Urban Acupuncture in Taipei, with focus on urban ecological restoration through punctual interventions (Casagrande
2011a). In 2010, the Ruin Academy was launched in Taipei with the help of the JUT Foundation for Arts
& Architecture (Harrison, 2012). The Academy operated as an independent multidisciplinary research
center moving freely in between the different disciplines of art and science within the general framework
of built human environment. The focus was on Urban Acupuncture and the
theory of the Third Generation
City.
Urban Acupuncture is a bio-urban theory (Casagrande, 2013), which
combines sociology and urban design
with the traditional Chinese medical theory of acupuncture. As a design
methodology, it is focused on tactical,
small-scale interventions on the urban fabric,
aiming in ripple effects and transformation on
the larger urban organism (Kaye, 2011). Through the acupuncture points, Urban Acupuncture seeks to be in contact with
the site-specific Local Knowledge. By its nature, Urban Acupuncture is pliant, organic, and relieves stress and
industrial tension in the urban environment,
thus directing the city towards the organic—urban nature as part of
nature. Urban Acupuncture produces small-scale, but ecologically and socially catalytic
development on the built human environment (Kim, 2010).
Urban Acupuncture is not an academic innovation. It refers to common
collective Local Knowledge practices
that already exist in Taipei and other cities, self-organizing practices that
are tuning the industrial city towards the organic machine—the Third Generation City.
Urban Acupuncture is a form of bio-urban healing and a development process connecting modern man with nature.
3. Third
generation city
The first-generation city is the one where the human settlements are in
straight connection with nature and dependent on nature. The fertile and rich Taipei
Basin provided a fruitful environment for such a settlement (Casagrande, 2011b). The rivers were full of fish and good for transportation, with the mountains protecting the farmed plains
from the straightest hits of
the frequent typhoons.
The second-generation city is the industrial city. Industrialism granted
the citizens independence from
nature—a mechanical environment could provide everything humans need. Nature
was seen as something unnecessary or
as something hostile—it was walled away from the mechanical reality (Casagrande, 2011b).
The Third Generation City is the organic ruin of the industrial city, an open form, an organic
machine tied with Local Knowledge
and self-organized community actions.
“To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist
now”
(Samuel
Beckett)
4. Paracity
Paracity is a bio-urban organism that is growing on the principles of Open Form (Casagrande, 2015b): individual design-built actions generating spontaneous communicative reactions on the surrounding built human environment. This organic constructivist dialogue leads to self-organized community structures, sustainable development, and knowledge building. Open Form is close to the original Taiwanese ways of developing the self-organized and often “illegal” communities. These micro-urban settlements contain a high volume of Local Knowledge, which we believe will start composting in Paracity, once the development of the community is in the hands of the citizens.
The agritectural organism
of the Paracity is based on a primary wooden
three-dimensional structure, an organic grid with spatial modules of 6
x 6 x 6 meters, constructed out of CLT (cross-laminated timber) beams, and columns.
This simple structure can be modified and developed by the community members. The primary structure can grow even in neglected urban areas such as flood plains, hillsides, abandoned industrial areas, storm water channels, and slums. Paracity is perfectly suited for flooding and tsunami risk areas and the CLT primary structure is highly fire-resistant and capable of withstanding earthquakes (HolzBuild, 2009).
Paracity provides the skeleton, but the citizens create the flesh.
Paracitizens will attach their individual, self-made architectural solutions,
gardens, and farms on the primary
structure, which will offer a three-dimensional building grid for Do-It- Yourself (DIY) architecture. The primary structure
also provides the main arteries
of water and human circulation, but the finer Local
Knowledge nervous networks are weaved in by the inhabitants. Large parts
of Paracity is occupied by wild and cultivated nature
following the example
of Treasure Hill and other unofficial communities in
Taipei.
Paracity model (Photograph by the Author).
Paracity’s self-sustainable bio-urban growth is backed up by off-the-grid
modular environmental technological solutions,
providing methods for water purification, energy production, organic waste treatment, waste water purification, and sludge recycling. These modular plug-in
components can be adjusted
according to the growth of the Paracity, and moreover, the whole Paracity is
designed not only to treat and circulate its own material
streams, but to start leeching
waste from its host city and thus becoming a positive urban parasite following the similar kinds of symbiosis as in-between slums
and the surrounding city. In a sense,
Paracity is a high-tech slum, which can start tuning
the industrial city towards an ecologically more sustainable direction. Paracity is a Third Generation City, an organic
machine urban compost,
which assists the industrial city to transform itself into being part of nature.
The pilot project of the Paracity grows on an urban farming island of Danshui River, Taipei City.
The island is located between the Zhongxing and Zhonxiao bridges and is around 1,000 meters long and 300 meters wide. Paracity Taipei celebrates the original first-generation Taipei urbanism with a high level of “illegal” architecture, self-organized communities, urban farms, community gardens, urban nomads, and constructive anarchy.
After the Paracity has reached critical mass, the life-providing system of the CLT-structure will start escalating. It will cross the river and start taking root on the flood plains. It will then cross the 12- meters high Taipei flood wall and gradually grow into the city. Paracity is a mediator between the modern city and nature.
Paracity has a lot of holes, gaps, and nature between houses. The different temperatures of the roofs, gardens, bodies of water and shaded platforms will generate small winds between them, and the hot roofs will start sucking in breeze from the cooler river. The individual houses should also follow the traditional principles of bioclimatic architecture and not rely on mechanical air-conditioning.
Third-generation Taipei (Drawing by Niilo Tenkanen / Casagrande Laboratory)
Paracity CLT-module, 6 x 6 x 6m (Photograph by Jan Feichtinger / Casagrande Laboratory).
5. Conclusion
The way towards the Third Generation City is a process of becoming a collective learning
and healing organism and of reconnecting the
urbanized collective consciousness with nature. This requires a total transformation from the city infrastructure
and from the centralized power control. Otherwise, the real development will be unofficial. Citizens on their behalf are
ready and are already breaking the industrial city apart by themselves. Local knowledge is operating independently from the official
city and is providing
The weak signals of the unofficial collective consciousness should be
recognized as the futures’ emerging issues;
futures that are already present
in Taipei. The official city should learn
how to enjoy acupuncture,
how to give up industrial control in order
to let nature step in.
The Local Knowledge-based transformation layer of Taipei is happening from inside the city, and it is happening
through self-organized punctual interventions. These interventions are driven
by small- scale businesses and
alternative economies benefiting from the fertile land of the Taipei Basin, and of leeching the material and energy
streams of the official city. This acupuncture makes the city weaker, softer, and readier for a larger
change.
The city is a manifest of human-centered systems—economical, industrial,
philosophical, political, and religious
power structures. Bio-urbanism is an animist
system regulated by nature. Human nature as part of nature, also within the urban
conditions. The era of pollution is the era of industrial urbanism – the second generation city. The
next era has always been surviving within the industrial city, like a positive cancer. The first-generation city never
died, it went underground, but the bio- urban
processes are still surviving. The seeds of the Third Generation City are
present. Architecture is not an art of human control; it is an art of reality.
There is no other reality than nature.
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